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I am new to this site as a member. Love the Steelers like a mother seeing her first new born. My first question for the forum is... Is weakdraft a Steelers fan ? I think not. Dude... why are you on here ? There's another guy that goes by the name ravenator that is always on a Steelers blog. I ask WHY ? Go find your rathole where your ratbirds feed on species. Smae goes for this packer fan. You folks are obviously undercover, wanna be Steelers fans. Weakdraft, you are a "tool". Do us a favor and go be another fan's tool. You have 31 others to choose from. But I must say you are amusing but irritating at the same time. Will be waiting to read what other nonsense comes out of your mouth. You sir/madam which ever you are, are PATHETIC.

1. Ziggy has not been a bust per say. He has been as productive as you can expect. He was just never a player who fitted the system.

This brings up something I've been discussing with my buddy for a while. What's expected out of a draft and out of a #1 pick. Certainly, I agree that Hood has not provided #1 value. But what should that value be? Is it too much to expect a #1 pick should be an all-pro? Hood starts, but shouldn't the expectation be higher than that?

From a draft class as a whole, what should be expected? Should we expect at least 2 starters, one an all-pro and maybe 4 total contributors (e.g., starters and back ups; not including special teams)? Where would you draw the line to call the entire draft class a bust?

It's interesting, because I've felt for a while that Colbert gets way too many accolades for his drafting prowess, but I don't think the drafting has been as great as he seems to get credit for.

This brings up something I've been discussing with my buddy for a while. What's expected out of a draft and out of a #1 pick. Certainly, I agree that Hood has not provided #1 value. But what should that value be? Is it too much to expect a #1 pick should be an all-pro? Hood starts, but shouldn't the expectation be higher than that?

From a draft class as a whole, what should be expected? Should we expect at least 2 starters, one an all-pro and maybe 4 total contributors (e.g., starters and back ups; not including special teams)? Where would you draw the line to call the entire draft class a bust?

It's interesting, because I've felt for a while that Colbert gets way too many accolades for his drafting prowess, but I don't think the drafting has been as great as he seems to get credit for.

Its an interesting debate which, to me, is two-fold. First of all you have to take into account who is drafted and when. Then you have to take into account the circumstances in which he is drafted into. Lets use Hood as an example.

First of all, at 32 he was actually decent value. He was probably not the best player available, but he was a cringe first round talent. So far then, the pick makes sense.

Now the issue is that he was drafted out of position. You draft a 4-3 UT to play 3-4 DE. As such, you cannot expect him to contribute form the get-go. It is very seldom to see players like Woodley who transition into a different system without a degree of difficulty. At the given time, that was fine because we did not have an immediate need for a starter. So he was drafted to be molded into another one of our good solid DEs.

Now, the pick is obviously a gamble. Colbert had to know that he used a first round pick on a player who was going to transition from a position to another. There are multiple issues with that. First of all, you are usually somewhat under/oversized. Secondly, you are not playing the same technique as you used to. This means that he must have had a strong belief that Hood was capable of adoption the new information.

This brings me to my second point. Hood was drafted into an organization with extremely high standards for DE play. Both the staff and the fans expect a lot from you, meaning he knew he had to become an entirely different player in order to not be labeled as a bust.

There will be different opinions on this matter, but in my book Hood has looked bad in our system. The question then becomes, can you blame him or Colbert? There is no doubt in my mind that Hood would have been a very very good player in, for instance, Colts system at the time in which he was drafted. Instead, he was picked by Pittsburgh who demanded him to make a transition which he proved to be incapable of making to the fullest. Yes, you can partly blame him for not being talented enough to make that transition, but you can also blame the entire Steelers scouting staff for not doing their homework properly. Hood was never in a position in which he thrived. It would be like putting an Charlie Batch into Ravens offensive system. It would be an ugly affair.

Can he be labeled a bust then? Well, he has been starting as you also point out. Yet we have not really seen the kind of production which we expect from a first-round pick; especially with the credentials our first-round picks have had over the last decade. Yet, you cannot fault the player entirely, which is also why I'm hesitant to call him a bust; after all, you get the feeling that under the right circumstances he would be a very dominant player.

However much you think you know about football, rest assured that Skip Bayless knows more!

I am new to this site as a member. Love the Steelers like a mother seeing her first new born. My first question for the forum is... Is weakdraft a Steelers fan ? I think not. Dude... why are you on here ? There's another guy that goes by the name ravenator that is always on a Steelers blog. I ask WHY ? Go find your rathole where your ratbirds feed on species. Smae goes for this packer fan. You folks are obviously undercover, wanna be Steelers fans. Weakdraft, you are a "tool". Do us a favor and go be another fan's tool. You have 31 others to choose from. But I must say you are amusing but irritating at the same time. Will be waiting to read what other nonsense comes out of your mouth. You sir/madam which ever you are, are PATHETIC.

I'm a steeler fan since 1968, Before that I liked the AFC. The Steelers sucked badly in the 60's.

I'm a realistic person, we can't play with the big boys now, we need to rebuild, Tomlin can't coach, and Ben won 2 SB's in spite of himself.

I'm not a rah rah fan, and I don't ride the bandwagon to be cool.

I played ball enough to know that you have to run the play called in the huddle, and you have to put points on the board, and you have to BE ABLE TO throw thw ball deep.